Dry bread And Water
by Jupiterrising2010
Summary: When Jennifer is abducted by an unknown civilisation with Hyperspace, who goes to her aid? Rodney, of course! He goes to lengthy ends to save Jennifer before she's resurrected too many times. McKeller. sorta inspired by the McKeller story 'Pharos'.
1. Chapter 1

**Please do be reminded that I do not own Stargate Atlantis, or anything else I write about. And his story is based around late season 2, when the Replicators are destroying Human worlds to kill the Wraith. But, more the the point, enjoy!**

**Chapter 1**

**I**

"Life-signs?" Sheppard asked McKay. They were all very sleep-deprived, especially Jennifer. Who was trudging along at the back, obviously tired out of her mind, staring at the, however scorched, mud-coated ground.

"Two... wait... they just went. There's nobody left." Rodney was then reminded that there were, foundations of them at least, buildings around them. The alien city had clearly been bombarded from space.

_As opposed to carefully dismantled buildings - in a scorched war-zone._

_Shut up! _He firmly told his sub-conscience. _Sometimes you seem more arrogant than me..._

A whirring scream cut him off from talking to his sub-conscience further. It didn't sound like Darts. They looked up. A ship was hovering over them. It wasn't Replicator, not Wraith, not Traveller, or anything else they knew for that matter. It looked like a slightly larger version of a Jumper with wings – without the engraved patterns and featureless cylinder shape. When weapons pulled out of a tight crater in the bottom of the ship and pointed at them, Sheppard ordered them to move out of the way. Jennifer wasn't as fast as the others and disappeared in a flash of bright light. The ship moved away in the direction of the Stargate. On pure impulse, he sprinted to the Jumper, standing in the road. He closed the rear hatch, activated the controls, and steered the Jumper to follow the ship. He opened the HUD to show a flight-plan. The ship appeared to be moving to the Stargate. He closed the HUD, then followed it. His DHD began to show symbols. He burned them into his mind, just in case, then followed the ship through the gate.

**II**

Jennifer woke up in a cell. It was hexagonal, with a hole leading to a corridor at the top. Her mind couldn't comprehend what was going on when people walked by at the top at an angle equivalent to the wall in the cell. She had heard about gravity being generated to create a different floor in a room separated from other rooms in various science-fiction movies watched with Rodney. But she never thought she would see one. Let alone be in one. One specially uniformed person, along with two other… _people?_... with weapons stood outside her cell. One bodyguard pressed a panel which she couldn't see – She fell on her chest.

_The gravity's been changed._

_I knew that!_

The bodyguards roughly picked her up and steered her outside the cell. Through a series of winding corridors, and windows opening to a completely elongated hyperspace tunnel, she had guessed as much that her new, mysterious location was indeed a starship. But a starship belonging to who? By descriptions from Sheppard and rants from Zelenka, she knew this wasn't a Traveller ship.

"Where are we going?"

"You are not at liberty to ask such questions." bodyguard#1 said in a, however mildly, monotone voice.

"Who are you?"

"You are not at liberty to ask such questions." bodyguard#2 replied for bodyguard#1. "However, I feel the need to answer. My name is Stagar. I died four years ago and am in the body of a mark eight Jemenoid of the CT000#/2 line which has been discarded for several centuries although the Jemenoids that were produced are still in use. I can survive at temperatures going to 200 both minus and plus, can live quite comfortably deep in the boiling Hydrogen swamps of gas giants according to the size of Vulcan, can smash through solid Ammonite with my bare fists and run at a top speed of 50, 000 kilometres an hour if uninterrupted."

"That's..." Her mind couldn't comprehend the reality of all of those happening so she simply said "powerful."

"Many would say amazingly powerful. Some even _too _powerful."

She was pulled into a room. It had a platform in the middle and had a long chamber at one end of the room. She was put into it. The burly bodyguards walked out. The specially uniformed one – most likely the captain of the ship – pressed some controls on the raised platform. She was pressed against the wall. She looked around to find her oppressor. However, there were none. She tried to move, but she could only move her head. And that took stamina. The person on the platform began to interrogate her.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I am Dr. Jennifer Keller." she answered, hoping she would later get answers. Her name and occupation was enough, right?

"Of whom?"

"Excuse me?"

"What is your occupation?"

"A medical doctor."

"Working for who?"

"Atlantis." She reluctantly answered, _so _hoping they weren't Wraith worshippers. The answer, in fact, proved the opposite.

"From what we hear, you have sometimes worked with the Wraith, Dr. Keller." The captain said Wraith hatefully, offering another reason why they didn't worship the Wraith.

"To destroy other Wraith, help the galaxy and help kill the Replicators, yes."

"'Working with your enemy does not make a friend'." she replied. "Those words were spoken by the Messiah, Janus."

"The inventor?"

"You mean the Messiah."

"What did he do to become your Messiah?"

"He created an electro-magnetic bubble around our stars, protecting us. It stays, and we venture into Pegasus when we must."

"What do you want with me?"

"I have heard that most Atlantis citizens have the Ancestor's power."

"The ATA gene?"

"Whatever you call it. We need help with activating Carthago."

"Activating? Who am I, Einstein?"

"Whoever 'Einstein' is... Well, I don't know."

"Einstein was a very intelligent person who lived 2 centuries ago. He created the Theory Of Relativity. Without him, we wouldn't be like Humanity is now."

"At least I got an answer out of that."

_Oops!_

"What is Carthago?"

**III**

The Jumper's drive pods retracted at Rodney's command. He cloaked the ship immediately as soon as he appeared on the other side. The layout seemed like a starship. It was indeed a ship in hyperspace and the location of the Stargate was in a glass dome. He saw the ship settle down on a platform, it's four drive pods supporting it like a Panda with low blood sugar and a common interest of fainting. A beam of light illuminated the platform as something teleported out from the ship's underside. The ship went through a hole, which opened automatically, in the centre of the dome. He mentally ordered the Jumper to magnify it's view on the escorted figure which had been teleported out by the ship. The IFF system confirmed his earlier suspicion: Jennifer was down there.

_You shouldn't have taken the Jumper. _His sub-conscience started.

_How else would I have gotten to the 'gate in time?_

Before his sub-conscience replied, defence towers pointed on the exact location of the Jumper

_Crap._ He thought.

_Crap, indeed. _His sub-conscience said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Please do be reminded that I do not own Stargate Atlantis, or anything else I write about. And this story is based around late season 2, when the Replicators are destroying Human worlds to kill the Wraith. But, more the the point, enjoy!**

**Chapter 2**

**I**

"I don't have the ATA gene." Jennifer said.

"You mean Ancestor's power." The captain, or at least she assumed as such, corrected.

"Whatever you call it." She mocked.

"Very well. Then you may help in another way."

**II**

He moved the Jumper away from the energy blasts, Then decloaked the Jumper, as there was no need for it any-more. He saw that the only chance he had was to get out of the Jumper. He moved it down to one of the platforms, landed it, then hastily opened the rear hatch. He ran out and through the door at the opposite end of the entrance then slammed the door shut as the Jumper exploded in a bluish-whitish-redish-orangish explosion. He easily located a panel on which to copy, paste and read information. When he logged on as an unused user, he admitted, quietly, so as not to alert guards, that he had indeed hit the jackpot; navigational data, planetary and empire history, botanical data, etc. What he needed was a map. He found a map, but not one that said 'You are here↓' like they did at the mall. It took him a while to find where he was on it. Then he attempted to locate the brig. He found it eventually. He looked inside the logs. There had indeed been someone brought in a short while ago synchronising with when he saw Jennifer.

He began to move down the hallway. Before he got two feet, two guards were pointing objects at him which didn't look like weapons, but definitely said _gun._

"Don't. Move." one of them said in an almost monotone, dare he think, robotic voice. After a moment which looked like a cowboy movie with a ball of dead grass bouncing in between them, cowboy music playing, and both sides holding revolvers pointed at each other's heads, Rodney pulled out his stunner and shot both of them. The blast seemed to rip off their skin. Rodney turned away, expecting to see blood and gore fall onto the floor. Instead, he didn't sense the same presence of blood. He opened his eyes and saw machinery under a thick layer of rubber and metal. He remembered that in Japan, on Earth, somebody had made a robot looking exactly like the scientist who created it. The robot was called 'Jemenoid'. Were these robots? It's speech sounded like it could only come from a Human. Surely their entire race wasn't machine-kind? He decided to figure out an answer to the question later and find Jennifer.

**III**

"As far as I know, Atlantis has codes. And further, codes to other places in Pegasus, and codes to your home planet. Tell me those codes, and I may well let you live and send you home."

_now _she was turning into torturer type. But those codes weren't something she could give away like ice cream.

_No, what am I thinking? Ice cream costs like 2 dollars. I'd have to tax her first._

"That's something I can't say."

"What pain would you rather endure? The two choices are: unconventional, and conventional."

Tough choice.

"_Unconventional_?"

"Very well." the captain walked over to the side and Jennifer's eyes lost track of her. She came back to the platform and opened the box she had brought from somewhere. She took something out of it. In it's silvery and deadly gleam, Jennifer could tell it was a knife.

"Now, when I throw something into that chamber you just happen to be in, the gravity changes, and it hurtles towards you at horribly scary speeds." Torturer. "It's falling at you like a meteor, and impales you. Now, I also increased to pressure in there so that you're not destroyed, but you can't move. So, last chance before pain starts; Tell me those codes."

"I can't do that." Jennifer sternly replied, ultimately scared of the blade in the captain's hand.

"Very well then." The captain released the knife into the chamber. It passed through a red force shield, then hurtled towards her like, as the captain described, a meteor. She felt a sharp, impaling pain. She screamed out in pain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Please do be reminded that I do not own Stargate Atlantis, or anything else I write about. And his story is based around late season 2, when the Replicators are destroying Human worlds to kill the Wraith. But, more the the point, enjoy!**

**Chapter 3**

**I**

Jennifer felt 2 more knives impact her body before everything went black. She almost immediately felt herself rise again in a pod. Two guards took her out gently, then she passed out as they put her on some stretcher. She felt herself be taken back to her cell, then she passed out.

**II**

Rodney cautiously caught a glance round the corner. Another 3 hours in this ship would probably break him more than torture victims were broken. Two guards were coming across the corridor at the other end of the way he was looking round. He saw Jennifer lying there, with holes in the front of her Atlantis uniform, but no tell-tale red smear to show she had been beaten, or shot, or worse. A hand fell on his shoulder. He fired his stunner at the source of the shadow without looking. Semi-organic parts spilled out on the floor and Rodney walked on without looking back as he would probably puke at the sight of the machine-organs. He followed the guards and decided to come back for her later. He barely got 2 feet without another Jemenoid speaking to him.

"I will help you."

Rodney turned with a stunner pointed at the figure.

"Do not fire." it said with fear in it's voice – not defiance.

"What causes you guys to burst when I fire a stunner at you?"

"A small machine uses quantified telekinesis to hold together the blocks forming the protection and skin. When a low or high-voltage electrical burst is fired and the burst contacts the skin, the concentration of the telekinesis device is disrupted, causing the structure and shape of the protection and skin to topple, spilling out all insides as it goes."

"Is all your race intellectual like that?"

"The rich ones. That's not the point. I've seen torture inflicted upon victims of the captain. She uses our own technology, which was designed to create artificial gravity and life simplification, to hurl knives as torture or uses a modified mining beam to inflict pain. She is relentless. And when the victim dies, she simply resurrects them. When it becomes too many resurrections, the mind is overwhelmed with addiction, overwhelming the molecular structure of each cell in the brain, killing the victim or creating pityingly regrettable brain damage."

"You want to help me save Jennifer?"

"If that is what you call her, then yes, I want to help you save her."

"But why?"

"Regret, sorrow, shame, stupidity, anger at years of blind obedience. Those kinds of things."

"What do you mean?"

"I am an originally dead man. This is a mark eight Jemenoid of the CT000#/9 line. This body can survive at temperatures going to 200 both minus and plus, can live quite comfortably deep in the boiling Hydrogen swamps of gas giants according to the size of Vulcan, can smash through solid Ammonite with its bare fists and run at a top speed of 50, 000 kilometres an hour if uninterrupted."

"That's impossible."

"They always said travelling faster than light was impossible." it reasoned "Look how that turned out."

Fair comparison.

**III**

"How about we try conventional now?" The captain asked/commanded. She pressed a pad on the machine in front of her. The slot facing her began to glow – red hot, white hot – then fired a beam at her chest. It wasn't that powerful, but it hurt like hell. It probably had _Hell Cannon_stapled to it's side. Everything went black after a few minutes as a black figure stormed the room.

**IV**

Rodney heard screaming from the room next to him. It sounded feminine, and like the scream Jennifer would give out. He went to open it and confirm his suspicions, but Jemenoid stopped him by grabbing his arm.

"That's the captains torture chamber. She integrated it into the ship when it was built, but you don't want to mess with the stuff she has in there." he said.

"I've to get in there."

"Well, at least take this." he pulled a high-tech rifle from his back. "Gauss rifle. If you want to storm a room full of high-tech torture equipment, Jemenoids like myself, and a fierce captain, you'll want this."

Rodney took the rifle and poised it ready for storming the room. "How many are in there?"

"Usually six. Eight for the resurrection team. Don't worry. Gauss rifles have stun settings. You can stun the captain and kill the Jemenoids."

Rodney kicked down the door before Jemenoid could say any more; Frankly, he didn't care who or what he killed. He just wanted to get Jennifer out. He aimed down the high-tech zooming scope and shot the first two Jemenoids who decided to get in his way. Jemenoid took down the next two with a Gauss pistol while Rodney whacked the rifle over the startled female's head, cracking it, then shot down the last two Jemenoids. There was a hexagonal chamber at one of the ends of the room. Jennifer was lying on the far wall, unconscious.

"I believe this is Jennifer."

And before Rodney could say anything else, Jemenoid raised his palm and a beam of light flooded out, and they were back in Atlantis.

**Sorry to cut it short, but I kinda wanted to get it done.**

**I hope you enjoyed this story, 'cause now it's done.**

**HAVE A GOOD DAY, YOU TORTURE-DONE...**


End file.
